Lego Pacman

Out of the blue Reese created these characters from the Pacman game. No instructions whatsoever. He did not even refer to any pictures while building them. I am very impressed with this. 

Science Fun - Vascular Plants

This is the Alternation of Generations Life Cycle as illustrated by Reese

Today we studied about Vascular plants. Read a chapter from Apologia's Exploring Creation with Botany book. After that, we took a walk around our neighbourhood looking for ferns and spores. It was an interesting walk. Too bad, we did not make it to the secondary forest. Will do so another day. We collected some samples and view them under the microscope. Gosh.... what we saw of the spores were awesome.  It took me some time to capture the images with my iPhone. After a while I got a headache but it was so worth it. Check out the images below.

These are spores we found on ferns

Waiting for breakfast at our neighbourhood cafe

We also collected some dry leaves to make a leaf infusion to breed protozoa. We added some yeast as food source. Apparently protozoa are everywhere and they hibernate (dried up). Once they are hydrated, they will be alive again and breed. So with the right environment and given a day or two, we should see some swimming around when viewed under the microscope. :) Stay tuned.

Reese adding yeast as food source for the protozoa

Our leaf infusion

Does your Child Read Recipe Books?

Mine does. In fact, he loves reading recipe books (I find it weird)! He can't cook but he is fascinated with the pictures of tasty looking food and would boss around or reminds me what to put into the food I am cooking. He will pester me to do so until I give in. He is a foodie. Food is the ultimate motivator..... :)

It's rare to kids reading at the recipe section....

Mom, can you cook Japanese food? Let me tell you the recipe......

Making a Light Hat

We are studying about circuits and one of the experiment is to test out a series circuit. With this series circuit, we made a light hat. Nothing fancy but enough to function like one. Tonight the boy is going to test it out in the dark. :)

I bought the electronic components from Radio Shack. If you have the time, do visit Jalan Pasar where they have a street filled with electronic shops. It has better selection and definitely cheaper.

Reese working on his first DIY circuit. Need to work on his motor skill!

A series circuit. We use this to make the light hat.

While working on the connection of wires, I burned my finger and a blister developed. *Duh*

See the burned mark of the adhesive tape on the top left? That is where my finger got burned.

A simple switch

Before adding the foil. 

Finished product. Not very nice but it functions. :)

Science Co-Op Update

The happy kids getting ready for lesson

The science co-op I started for Reese is almost 2 years old. It is really great when you see how the children have progressed. We are not perfect but I believed everyone has benefitted including the parents. 2 days ago, it was my turn to supervise the class and it was a pleasure to see the kids being engaged and had fun learning. 

Reese's diagrams and explanation

We did a quick review about trees and gymnosperms. My assistant a.k.a Reese was all excited from the night before and helped me draw some diagrams for the class. After the review, I took the kids to a secondary jungle close by. They were told to look for twigs with terminal buds/ terminal bud scars, different types of leaves for comparison and also to study trees and barks... kids were excited and really took the time to appreciate nature and seriously studying trees and plants around them. 

It was really lovely watching the kids munch on their snack while in discussion whether a little wiggly thing they found on the forest floor was a worm or something else. 

After a 2 hour lesson, the kids were free to play and the mummies got to relax and chat a bit. 

Many parents think setting up a co-op is hard work. It is not. You just need to lay some ground rules, get committed and like minded parents together and share the teaching (more like supervising). For us, having a book and direction of what we want the kids to learn helps. This is so much better than spending hundreds of ringgit on enrichment classes. 

Going into the secondary jungle

Not sure what kind of nest this is but it is fascinating

All kinds of leaves and we found this fascinating

 Checking out the layers of a tree trunk and an amazing looking flower that contains seeds

Interesting seedlings/ sprouts

 Getting samples and check out this amazing looking spider and its web!

Checking out the leaves and spores they collected with a microscope